“Most of those who travel off-world get regular rejuvenation treatments. This human must have been deprived long enough for natural processes to come back into play.”
“They’re disgusting.”
“I’ve seen worse. There is a small furry creature, native to a plateau on my world, which becomes a delicacy if it dies in sufficient pain. The natives of the region like to place a young one in a cage just large enough for its own body and feed it enough to make it swell to twice its natural size. As it fattens, the cage bars slice it in—”
Barath had endured more than his share of Mukh’than’s enthusiasm for shocking details. “Enough. Let’s confirm that he’s the correct human.”
The Human Being coughed twice, raised his head off the ancient pillow, and murmured a few words in Hom.Sap Mercantile. “I want Ravia.”
“What is that?” Barath asked, as he removed the skin taster from his pack. “A refreshment?”
“A female of his kind,” Mukh’than said. “A loved one, absent or long dead.”
The skin taster was a flimsy thing, made for human hands, but Barath managed. He brushed the tip of the device across the old man’s arm, withdrew, then projected a genetic analysis for Mukh’than’s perusal. Mukh’than took longer than he needed to read the results, which was inconsiderate indeed, given that Barath couldn’t read the only alphabet the reader could display, the overcomplicated squiggles of Hom.Sap Mercantile.
The special tilt of Mukh’than’s head more than compensated for the inadequate expressiveness of the Riirgaan face.
Barath didn’t even need to ask the question. “It’s him.”
“Yes.”
“Magrison? That’s what it says?”
“Full positive,” Mukh’than said. “It’s the beast Magrison. There’s no margin for error.”
So shaken he didn’t know whether to feel triumph or horror, Barath muttered a word he hadn’t spoken since renouncing his faith. Magrison was that infamous. “All this time. All those people looking for him…”
“He had to be under a rock, to hide from the Humans. They have always raised so many monsters among their general population that they’ve grown very talented at finding those who choose to hide.”
Barath grunted. “You probably consider yourself lucky your kind is less talented in that regard.”
“Yes. And so must you. But what do you want to do with this one?”
Barath shuffled back and contemplated the figure. Sixty years, by the Hom.Sap Mercantile calendar, of hiding with people not his own, in squalor that must have reminded him of his fugitive status every day. Sixty years of knowing that the majority of his species fell into those who would have killed him right away and those who would have preferred to make his execution a neverending ordeal. Sixty years of evading the consequences of being a legendary monster… only to be revealed as a pathetic, senile invalid.
Barath, who didn’t often feel sorry for anybody, would have felt pity for this man, were it not for the magnitude of his crimes against his own people… and the size of the bounty for his capture. “Do you know how many sentients would want to stand where we stand now? How many would kill to be here with a knife, a thresher, or even their own bare fists—just to do what this creature here deserves?”
“I hesitate to count,” said Mukh’than. “But as for us?”
“We see whoever makes the decisions around here. We tell them who he is. We see if they’re still so anxious to shelter him then.”
“They will be,” Mukh’than said. “If anything, more so.”
The ancient Human Being spasmed, his coughs weak things barely audible beyond his pallet. “Where’s Ravia?” he murmured. “I want Ravia.”
Barath glowered at the emaciated figure sweating out his last days on the pallet. So many ways to retort to that. So few likely to get past the fog.
Our human is a creature who has had his life ripped from him, and who now leads a life he would not have chosen, among people who would not have chosen his company.
Alas, the Trivids had little sense of history and no sense of obligation to justice beyond their little swamp. Barath made Mukh’than translate at the start, but the constant repetitions of “You can’t have him” grew so wearying he just left the Riirgaan to his work. The more Mukh’than wheedled with them the more obstinate they became, jabbering away in the pidgin that Barath could barely stand to consider a language, sweeping their arms in gestures he didn’t need a translator to recognize as abject refusal.
The shadows cast by the forest canopy had grown considerably longer by the time the villagers dispersed, leaving Barath and Mukh’than alone in a village that seemed to have dismissed them.
Barath was so tired by then that he was almost happy for the chance to table the negotiations for the night. “No progress?”
Mukh’than touched a forefinger to his chin in the Riirgaan gesture of negation. “None.”
“What’s their problem? Do they worship him?”
“Venerate is probably more like it. They live only a quarter as long as untreated Human Beings, and therefore see him as a creature who has been part of their village life for generations. They consider any crimes Magrison committed before he came here ancient history.”
“Do they even know what he did?”
“They know he did something bad, once upon a time. He has admitted this much to them. Sometime before he lost his faculties he even warned them that outsiders might try to take him into custody. But they don’t know the specifics, and they don’t care. He is too much a part of their lives for them to care.”
“Maybe if you gave him the details,” Barath said.
“Perhaps. I need to rest anyway. Maybe, in the morning, I will know the best way to make our case.”
Barath could think of few things he desired less than sleep, as his people had minimal need for that condition. He desired another exposure to the prayers Mukh’than mumbled at night even less. But he knew the Riirgaan’s needs were different from his own, so he assented.
They inflated the sleepcube and went inside for a few hours of protection from the insects and the muggy swamp-stench that saturated everything around the Trivid village. The air inside was not much better, given the olfactory consequences of a Riirgaan and a Kurth curled grubby and unwashed in close quarters.
It was a long night. Every few minutes in Barath’s imagination, he leaped from the cube, batted the obstinate Trivids aside, seized the withered human from his bed, and collected the bounty. Then every few minutes he came back to himself, still curled beside his noisome guide, and still grimacing from his own dismay at not having done anything at all. It was intolerable for a sentient like Barath who had never seen the value of waiting.
Of course, impatience was a large part of the crime that had left Barath exiled from Kurth in the first place.
It hadn’t been a serious offense, as such things were judged among his people. It wasn’t killing without acceptable cause, or procreation without a cleansing fast. It had just been slovenly work: bored performance of a task contracted and paid for. Important people had been inconvenienced; a lucrative industrial concern had been shamed; a slave had been damaged beyond repair. It had all been tracked back to him. Barath would never be allowed back on Kurth unless he redeemed both his reputation and his finances—which was one reason he’d seized upon the claims of the dying Bursteeni he’d encountered at the mining camp infirmary.
The Bursteeni had claimed to have seen Magrison with his own eyes before illness felled him on his way to reporting this momentous discovery to human interests. To Barath, fallen so far that he might as well have been one of the slaves commanded by his people, the prospect of finding Magrison himself was a map offering a possible route out of hell. Even split between himself and his guide, the reward offered by the Hom.Saps could be enough to fund an outcast’s way home. It could even be enough to fund a return with honor.